1. Field of the Invention
This invention defines a system and method for discovering nearby telephones and their corresponding identities and capabilities using a special broadcast and response from such devices using a secondary channel for such communication.
2. Background Information
A Service Provider is defined in this document as the entity that provides call routing and distribution. It can include a company PBX, or VoIP PBX (IP-PBX), it can be a Centrex system, or it can be a traditional telephone service provider (e.g., PacBell).
An Endpoint (EP) will be defined here as a device that provides capabilities for generating and/or terminating plurality of information streams.
In this document, the word “telephone” or “phone” will be used in its most general sense and will encompass a home telephone, office telephone, conference phone, cell phone, PDA, videophone, etc. Endpoint can be used interchangeably with Phone.
An Originating Device (OD) is a device that originally owns a telephone call, and wants to interact with a different Endpoint. For the purpose of this document, an Originating Device will be considered to be a Mobile Phone.
An Endpoint ID (EP-ID) is the identity of the Telephone. For example, it could be a normal telephone number (555-123-4567), it also could be an IP address of IP phone, or fully qualified VoIP (SIP, MGCP, H.323, etc.) address.
Endpoint Capabilities (EP-CAP) consist of features that EP supports, e.g., telephone's name (e.g., John's Phone), protocol used (POTS, SIP, H.323, ISDN), media streams supported (e.g., audio only, POTS channel, video and audio), audio compressions, etc. It also includes Endpoint ID (EP-ID). Therefore, for the purpose of this document, whenever Endpoint ID is used, it can be always substituted with Endpoint Capabilities. Information included in the Endpoint Capabilities could be used to transfer a pending call to the other telephone (either IP based, or just a different hand-set). It could also be used to invite another telephone to a conference call. Such a situation can occur when an End User moves from one room to another room while holding a telephone conversation. The other room might have a telephone that is not marked (e.g., conference room phone that does not have a label on it).
In the present state of the art, if an End User wishes to determine the location of various telephones in a vicinity and the various telephone Endpoint Capabilities, End User has to inquire, about them individually, which is awkward, time consuming, and may not even be possible at the time. In essence, there is no automated way in the present state of the art for an End User to query and determine these telephone locations and properties.